DADS AND DAUGHTERS by Shawn Brooks, M. Div. Junior

I have a daughter who just turned seven. Before she was born, I thought I had some idea of the issues involved in trying to raise her to be a strong, smart, capable, independent woman who could think for herself and make her own choices. I knew that body image could eventually be an issue, and that the sexualization of our culture would need to be dealt with at some point. I would need to help her learn that she need not be limited by others’ ideas of what is “proper” for her to do or be. I was not prepared for the thoroughness of gender-based marketing.

I should have been, I suppose. Looking back, even in my childhood, Saturday mornings featured commercials for “action” toys that starred only boys and other toys for “domestic play” that starred only girls. I owned one of the original 12″ G.I. Joe “action figures”–a phrase coined because boys supposedly don’t play with “dolls.” But I didn’t think much about all that at age eight. When I played with girls, I often played house. When I played with boys, I often played cowboys or war. It didn’t matter; we just played something that everyone agreed on.

I started to recognize the pervasiveness of gender-based marketing to kids when we were trying to buy baby clothes before my daughter was born. We deliberately chose not to know our baby’s gender before birth, and we tried to find clothes in gender-neutral colors. It was almost impossible. Every item of clothing for newborns is either pink or blue or, occasionally, white; I think we found one green and one yellow outfit in all our searching. Little did I know this was just the tip of the iceberg.

As our daughter grew older, she inevitably discovered Disney movies, both the classics such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and their modern peers: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and others. I have to admit that I was an accessory-before-the-fact: I enjoyed the music and animation in the newer Disney movies. As a single man I had never thought much about the messages their heroines might be sending to young girls. By the time I started to think about that, it was much too late–my daughter was into everything princess.

Sometime around the turn of the millennium, Disney realized the power of packaging their various princesses together in videos, books, toys, and almost anything else you can think of that children use. In her essay “Princess Dreams,”* Katherine Turpin explains her own history with Disney Princesses and her daughter, and discusses not only the pervasiveness of the brand in children’s lives, but how the messages of both consumerism and gender stereotyping can affect a child’s developing spirituality. One of the many interesting points Turpin makes is about the falsity of the relationship a child develops with a fictional character:

Children put enormous amounts of energy and investment in the lives and happenings of nonexistent persons. However, when children are in need of assistance or support, these relationships provide neither support (of a material or emotional variety) nor, in most cases, an example of agency to inspire young girls.

The constant stimulation provided by the ubiquitous nature of products such as the Disney Princesses leads to another problem: if something is not entertaining, it’s boring. I have seen this with my own daughter. Some days it is a struggle to get her to read, even if she is not interested in her toys. As Turpin says, “This emphasis on excitement … limits the perceived value of non-entertainment activities with children, many of which are critical for children’s spiritual development.” Things that help one grow, especially spiritually, quite often are not “fun,” but they are necessary, and it is our job as parents to provide such experiences for our children.

How do we combat the messages consumer products are giving to our children, and replace them with solid spiritual values? In particular, how do I, as a dad, show my daughter that she does not have to conform to the gender stereotypes conveyed by the stories behind her favorite toys, even though I have often in my life been guilty of perpetuating those very stereotypes? Turpin examines several possible strategies:

■ Fight Fire With Fire – “Here, watch some VeggieTales.” Products such as VeggieTales may have better messages and teach the Gospel, but they do nothing to fight the “it has to be entertaining” issue.

■ Abstinence – “Such-and-such product will never be found in this house.” The problem here is that such control ends at one’s front door, and the messages of consumer culture are everywhere. If children are attracted to it, they will find it, whether it can be found in their own house or not.

■ Contestation – “How could Character X make better choices for her life?” Talk to your children about what they are seeing. As Turpin notes: “This parental work is not in vain. Children’s interactions with the stories and iconic characters proffered by the media are deeply impacted by the values and responses of those who surround them.”

■ Forge Authentic, Noncommercial Connections – Make sure your child has the opportunity to create relationships with adults or adolescents who can be good role models themselves. These relationships can be found many places, but if they are found among the congregation they have the added benefit of having a spiritual component already present. Speaking of her daughter, Turpin says, “she knows the value of these relationships; they are connections with real people who call her by name and love her as she is.”

■ Change Social Policy Through Collective Action – Fight back. Work to create changes in the relentless marketing to children. Join groups that put pressure on companies to be accountable for the messages they send.

In my case, it’s too late to put the genie back into the bottle. Now I have to work to counteract my daughter’s devotion to all things Princess. There is hope: she recently announced that she wasn’t interested in the Disney movies so much anymore, that now she likes movies with “real people in them.” But the pull of the princess storyline remains strong. We constantly remind her that she doesn’t need anyone else to be what she wants to be as a person. I can only hope that if I tell her that often enough, with enough love behind it each time, she’ll remember it when the cultural pressure of marketing lures her with its siren song.

2 responses to “DADS AND DAUGHTERS by Shawn Brooks, M. Div. Junior”

Shawn, good points all. Having raised two daughters during what might have been the height of Disney/Britney Spears/Barbie computer game era, I can say that sometimes the best way to deal with these issues is to not deal with them. It sounds sort of counter intuitive, but in reality, our children learn most from us by observing what we do and say in our daily lives. Not the lectures we give them, or the responses we have to movies. But if they see that we are enjoying experiences like hiking more than we enjoy shopping and buying stuff, they internalize that experiences are better than things. If they see that we spend many hours reading, they internalize that reading must be something worthwhile. Etc. And, I have to say, there are so many phases that both genders go through on their way to adulthood, I think it might just be okay to let those phases happen and move along to the next one as it happens. Even well into their 20s, I think kids “try on” different personas and interests until they find what they like. My daughters both bought into all kind of princess-y Disney stuff, but they never internalized the overall sense of that as the model for being a woman. Both are smart, strong, driven, accomplished women. Food for thought.

Having raised and still raising a daughter who is now sixteen, I would have to agree not dealing with it has worked best. My daughter really loved all the princes stuff to watch while young. Boy I am glad we did not have the all Barbie Channel on TV too! She loved to collect and play Barbie. She watched Barbie and Little Mermaid, etc, etc. She is a girl and will be a woman. A Woman that can determine what she wants, how she wants to go about it and does not stand for peer pressure. With that, she has learned to push off the peer pressures that would drive a young person away from the church. As she recently described church in a class, “It is a place that I am safe in.” She also related that change was a good thing in this safe place. That being said, change can not only be in how we do things at church but it can touch all aspects of life if done in the realm of the church using God as a guide for what is needed for her and others to grow into health adults of either gender. Boys don’t play with dolls, but they can. Boys don’t cry but they can. Boys do not hug, but they do. The same goes with girls, they do not have to be a cook for the family, wear dresses all the time, be servant of the husband. My little girl, now young adult has decided to be who she wants to be, not who the world wants her to be. All can be accomplished in God.